Im-Politic: Will the Pandemic’s Real Lessons Ever Be Learned?

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CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, facemasks, Great Barrington Declaration, Im-Politic, lockdowns, Mainstream Media, mandates, natural immunity, The New York Times, vaccines

Give The New York Times some credit here. On the one hand, its big, graphics-rich feature marking the grim news that about a million Americans have been killed by the CCP Virus has pinpointed a highly specific group of culprits for this towering toll, and an equally specific group of measures that could have held it way down (although it’s never indicated by how much).

Among the worst: “elected officials who played down the threat posed by the coronavirus and resisted safety measures” and “lower vaccination and booster rates than other rich countries, partly the result of widespread mistrust and resistance fanned by right-wing media and politicians.”

So clearly, the authors insist, mask-wearing and lockdowns and social distancing should have been imposed much faster and more widely (without stating for how long), and more vaccinations required.

On the other hand, the reader is presented with abundant evidence that the benefits of such measures might have been limited – which is especially striking since not even a hint is provided that such steps might have inflicted considerable damage in their own right – including from other threats to public health that have been neglected.

Most strikingly, consistent with its observation that “The virus did not claim lives evenly, or randomly.” the piece reminds that in fact, the worst damage was remarkably concentrated in a single group. Specifically, “Three quarters of those who have died of Covid have been 65 or older.” Moreover, of that cohort, a third were 85 and over.

And then there was the related nursing homes disaster. According to the Times piece, a fifth of the roughly million CCP Virus-induced deaths in America occurred among residents and staff of these facilities.

Why longer and more sweeping lockdowns and the like would have reduced the virus’ damage to the nation as a whole, considering all the economic, educational, and health harm they produced for the vast majority of Americans who were far less vulnerable, is never explained.

The article’s case for vaccine mandates is similarly muddled. It repeats the widespread claims that most of those who died from the virus after vaccines became widely available were unvaxxed, and that “vaccinated people have had a much lower death rate — unvaccinated people have been at least nine times as likely to die since April 2021 [when the eligibility for the doses became universally available].”

At the same time, readers learn that:

>“at least 50,000 vaccinated people, many of them older or without booster shots, were among the deaths reported since late April 2021….”; and that

>”People 80 and older who had gotten shots were almost twice as likely to die at the height of the Omicron wave as those in their 50s or early 60s who had not, according to C.D.C. [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] data.”

Further, the article makes clear that, even forgetting about the decisive role played by age, claims about vaccine effectiveness are substantially exaggerated. Despite presenting the common contention that “unvaccinated people have been at least nine times as likely to die since April 2021,” the chart presented to support this point shows that this ratio has held for only part of the period duing which vaccines have become widely available. The chart also that the gap has almost disappeared today.

In addition, the piece reports that “The C.D.C. has received data on deaths by vaccination status from only about half of the states….” As the authors explain, this data shortage makes it “impossible to know exactly how many vaccinated people are among the million who have died.”

Conversely, this data shortage – along with thoroughgoing ignorance about how many Americans have enjoyed natural immunity from the virus and therefore passed up the jabs, and how many who caught Covid asymptomatically and made similar decisions – also prevents figuring out what share of unvaccinated Americans died of the virus.

But because both numbers are doubtless both enormous, this percentage is doubtless much smaller than commonly supposed.  The Times authors (and their editors, who it should always be remembered greenlight every article’s journalistic methodology) might have adjusted their judgements, and recognized that alternative pandemic mitigation approaches — including those that took into account the difficult tradeoffs that needed to be made — have long been recommended, had they bothered to consult any of the impressively credentialed specialists who have been making these points. 

Yet they seemed as determined to ignore or marginalize their views as the official U.S. medical establishment has been.  As long as both America’s healthcare leaders and its Mainstream Media so doggedly oppose full debate on the real lessons taught by the pandemic, it’s hard to imagine that the nation will be prepared for the (inevitable) arrival of the next deadly pathogen. 

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: U.S. Manufacturing Job Creation Gains More Momentum

Tags

aircraft, aircraft engines, aircraft parts, automotive, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Employment, Federal Reserve, furniture, inflation, Jobs, machinery, manufacturing, miscellaneous durable goods, non-farm payrolls, personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals, plastics and rubber products, PPE, recession, semiconductor shortage, semiconductors, supply chains, transportation equipment, Ukraine-Russia war, vaccines, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Today’s official April U.S. jobs report featured such a strong showing by U.S.-based manufacturers that, by one measure, they reclaimed title of America’s best job-creating sector during the CCP Virus era (and its aftermath?).

Domestic industry boosted its payrolls sequentially last month by 55,000 workers, its best such performance since July’s 62,000 gain. In addition, revisions were excellent. March’s initially reported 38,000 increase is now pegged at 43,000, and February’s upgraded 38,000 rise is now judged to have been 50,000.

As a result, manufacturing’s share of U.S. non-farm employment (the federal government’s definition of the American jobs universe), has improved from 8.38 percent in February, 2020 – the last full data month before the virus began roiling the national economy – to 8.41 percent as of last month.

And during this period, manufacturing’s share of America’s private sector jobs is up from 9.83 percent to 9.86 percent.

Domestic industry has recovered a slightly smaller share of the jobs it lost during the sharp pandemic-induced downturn of spring, 2020 (95.89 percent) than the private sector (97.62 percent). But it also shed fewer jobs proportionately than the rest of the private sector during that terrible March and April. (For the record, because of a drag created by public sector hiring, the share of all non-farm jobs regaine d now stands at 94.59 percent.

In all, U.S.-based manufacturing employment is now down a mere 0.44 percent from immediate pre-pandemic-y February, 2020.

April’s manufacturing jobs winners were broad-based, but the biggest among the major sectors tracked by the Labor Department were:

>transportation equipment, whose 13,700 employment improvement was its best such performance since last October’s 28,200. (Last month I erroneously reported that the sector’s best recent monthly performance was last August’s 19,000.) Unfortunately, March’s initially reported employment advance of 10,800 was revised down to 8,800, and February’s previously estimated 19,800 jobs plunge (the worst monthly performance since April, 2021’s automotive shutdown-produced nosedive of 48,100) is now judged to be 19,900. Bottom line: This sector’s employment levels are still 3.38 percent below those of that last full pre-pandemic data month of February, 2020;

>machinery, where 7,400 jobs were added on month – an especially encouraging result since its products are so widely used throughout the rest of manufacturing and the entire economy. Even better, March’s initially reported 1,700 employment increase was revised all the way up to 6,700, and February’s perfomance – which had been revised down from an 8,300 rise to one of 6,600, recovered a bit to 6,700. As a result, machinery employment is off just 1.55 percent from its February, 2020 levels;

>automotive, which boosted headcounts by 6,400 – its best monthly gain since last October’s 34,200 plant reopening-driven burst. But March’s initially reported 6,400 jobs rise was downgraded to 3,600, and even though February’s major job losses were revised for the better again, they’re still pegged at 14,000 – the worst since the 49,100 employees shed during the shutdowns last April. These gyrations have left the combined vehicles and parts workforce 0.78 pecent smaller than in February, 2020;

>plastics and rubber products, which upped employmment by 5,700 sequentially in April, the best such performance since last August’s 7,800. Job-wise, these sectors are now 3.38 percent larger than in February, 2020.

The only significant jobs losers in April were furniture and related products and miscellaneous durable goods. The former lost 1,100 positions in April, but employment has still inched up by 0.57 percent since pre-pandemic-y February, 2020. The latter – which includes much of the protective gear needed to fight and contain the CCP Virus – reduced employment by 1,400 sequentially last month. But this decrease was the first since last August’s 600 loss, and followed a strong 3,100 jobs gain in March. This catch-all category’s employment is now 1.54 percent higher than in February, 2020.

As always, the most detailed employment data for pandemic-related industries are one month behind those in the broader categories, and as with the rest of domestic industry for March, their employment picture showed improvement overall.

The semiconductor and related devices sector is still struggling to meet demand, but hiring continued its slow-but-steady pandemic-era increase in March with job gains of 700. February’s initially reported 100 employment loss now stands at a 100 employment gain, and January’s numbers stayed at plus-300 – the best monthly performance since last October’s 1,000. This sector now employs 1.34 percent more workers than in February, 2020 – impressive since during the sharp spring, 2020 economic downturn, it kept adding jobs.

The latest employment results were mixed for surgical appliances and supplies makers – a category within the aforementioned miscellaneous durable goods sector, and one in which personal protective equipment and similar medical goods abound. In March, the industry added 1,100 workers, but revisions completely wiped out February’s initially reported 800 jobs gain. The January hiring increase stayed at a downwardly revised 1,300. Even so, since just beforet the pandemic’s arrival in force in the United States, these companies have increased payrolls by 4.07 percent.

The very big pharmaceuticals and medicines industry continued to be a moderate employment winner in March. It hired an additional 900 workers on month, and though its February improvement was downgraded (from 1,300 to 1,000), the number was solid. Moreover, January’s hugely upgraded 1,100 employment rise stayed intact. Since February, 2020, this sector’s headcount is up fully 9.23 percent.

March jobs gains were more subdued in the medicines subsector containing vaccines, but they still totaled 400. February’s initially reported employment increase of 800 is estimated at just 500 now, and January’s identical increase stayed the same. But over time, this industry’s jobs growth has been impressive – 23.15 percent since the last pre-pandemic data month of February, 2020.

Good job gains continued in March in the aviation cluster as well. Aircraft manufacturers (including still-troubled industry giant Boeing) rose by 1,100 sequentially – the best monthly gain since last June’s 4,400. February’s increase was upgraded from 500 to 600, but January’s sequential job loss stayed unrevised at 800. This net increase brought aircraft employment to within 11.08 percent of its February, 2020 level.

The aircraft engines and engine parts industry followed February’s unrevised 900 hiring increase by adding 500 more workers in March. January’s results, however, stayed at a slightly downgraded 900 loss. And these companies’ still employ 12.65 percent fewer workers than in February, 2020.

The deep jobs depression in the non-engine aircraft parts and equipment sector remained deep in March, but a little less so. Jobs gains for the month totaled 700, February’s initially reported 200 increase was unrevised, and January’s way upwardly revised job rise was downgraded only from 1,500 to 1,400. But since just before the pandemic, the non-engine aircraft parts and equipment sector has still shrunk by 15.74 percent.

Having recently navigated its way skillfully through a once-in-a-century pandemic, a virtual shutdown of the entire U.S. economy, continuing supply chain disruption, multi-decade high inflation, a major war in Europe (so far), former export champ Boeing’s woes, and sluggish-at-best growth in much of the foreign markets it relies on heavily, it’s tempting to say that U.S-based manufacturing will have finally met its match if the Federal Reserve’s inflation-fighting campaign dramatically slows growth domestically — or worse.  But since the pandemic began, the next time the manufacturing pessimists are right will be the first.       

 

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: U.S. Manufacturing Employment Powers Through Ukraine Jitters, Too

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aerospace, aircraft, aircraft engines, aircraft parts, appliances, automotive, CCP Virus, chemicals, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, electrical equipment, Employment, Federal Reserve, inflation, interest rates, Jobs, lockdowns, machinery, medicines, metals, monetary policy, non-farm employment, non-farm jobs, personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals, PPE, recession, Russia, semiconductor shortage, semiconductors, supply chains, surgical equipment, tariffs, transportation equipment, Ukraine-Russia war, vaccines, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

The Ukraine war looks like the latest disastrous development that’s failed to stop the impressive growth in U.S. domestic manufacturing employment – just as has been the case recently with the Omicron variant of the CCP Virus and surging inflation. And let’s not forget that the Federal Reserve has begun raising interest rates and signaled that steeper hikes are on the way – steps of course designed to cool off the economy, including the demand for manufactured goods.

U.S.-based industry added a strong 38,000 net new jobs on month in March, according to this morning’s monthly employment report from the Labor Department, and revisions were positive. February’s initially reported 36,000 sequential improvement was upgraded to 38,000, and January’s already upwardly revised 16,000 advance is now judged to have been 26,000.

In fact, domestic industry slightly outperformed the rest of the non-farm economy (the Labor Department’s definition of the U.S. jobs universe) job-wise in March, with its share of non-farm employment inching up from 8.38 percent to 8.39 percent. These results, moreover, show that manufacturing jobs have grown a bit faster than the overall economy’s throughout the pandemic period. In February, 2020, the last data month before the virus and related lockdowns and behavioral curbs began roiling and distorting the economy, manufacturing accounted for 8.38 percent of total non-farm jobs.

The comparison with the private sector isn’t quite as impressive, but satisfactory all the same. Manufacturing’s share of those jobs as of March was 9.83 percent – exactly the same as it was in February, 2020. And some context is essential here: U.S. manufacturing payrolls have held their own and then some even though the massive, sweeping Trump tariffs on imports from China – which were supposed to cripple domestic industry – are still almost entirely in place, as are many of the former president’s tariffs and other trade curbs on metals.

From another vantage point, manufacturing has now replaced 1.244 million (90.60 percent) of the 1.362 million jobs it shed in March and April, 2020 – the peak of the CCP Virus’ first wave.

That trails the 92.82 percent of non-farm workers and 95.46 percent of private sector workers hired back during this period. But the gap isn’t big at all, and manufacturers shrunk their headcounts proportionately less than the rest of the economy during that horrendous spring of 2020. So they didn’t have as much ground to make up.

February’s biggest manufacturing jobs winners among the major sectors tracked by the Labor Department were:

>transport equipment, where payrolls in March advances by 10,800 – their best such performance since last August’s 19,000. At the same time, this increase followed a 19,800 February jobs plunge that was the sector’s worst such performance since the automotive sub-sector’s semiconductor shortage woes led to a nosedive of 48,100 in April, 2021. All this volatility left this sector’s employment levels 4.05 percent below those in that final pre-pandemic data month of Februay, 2020 – versus the one percent decrease since then by manufacturing overall;

>chemicals, whose 7,200 monthly jobs jump was its best ever (or at least since figures began being tracked in 1990). The previous all-time high was the 6,600 gain of January, 2021. This huge industry’s headcount is now up 4.49 percent since February, 2020;

>electrical equipment and appliances, where employment rose sequentially by 3,800 for its strongest increase since March, 2021’s 4,200. Jobs-wise, these industries are now 2.82 percent larger than in Febuary, 2020;

>and automotive. This industry, a sub-sector of transportation equipment, boosted employment by 6,400 in March, the most in a month since last October’s 34,200 burst. But underscoring the volatility among vehicle and parts makers, This March increase followed a 16,000 drop-off in February that was the biggest decrease since the 49,100 jobs lost in April, 2021. These ups and downs still have left automotive employment 1.32 percent their February, 2020 levels.

Machinery’s 1,700 monthly jobs gain in March wasn’t exceptional by the above standards. But RealityChek regulars know it’s of special importance because its products are so widely used throughout manufacturing and the rest of the economy. And in a somewhat discouraging development, this sector’s initially reported 8,300 jobs growth was revised down to 6,600. And its payrolls are still 2.89 percent smaller than in February, 2020.

The only significant jobs loser in March was non-metallic mineral products, where employment sank by 4,500 on month. That was the sector’s worst such perforance since last May’s 5,300 decline, but the March downturn snapped a string of good gains for these companies, and their workforces are 2.81 percent above their February, 2020 levels.

As always, the most detailed employment data for pandemic-related industries are one month behind those in the broader categories, and as with the rest of domestic industry for February, their employment picture showed improvement overall.

In that shortages-plagued semiconductor and related devices sector, employment dipped by 100 on month, but January’s initially reported 200 increase was revised up to 300– its best such performance since October’s 1,000 advance. Since February, 2020, its headcount has climbed by only 0.86 percent, but these companies actually added jobs during the very steep CCP Virus-induced recession of spring, 2020.

Surgical appliances and supplies makers – whose products include personal protective equipment and similar medical goods – boosted employment by 800 in February. January’s initially reported 1,700 jobs increase was downgraded to 1,300, and December’s results were unrevised at 1,100. These health security-related companies have expanded their workforces by 3.79 percent since February, 2020.

The employment news was particularly good in the very big pharmaceuticals and medicines industry. Its February monthly employment increase of 1,300 was the best since September’s 1,600, and January’s initially reported dip of 100 now stands as an increase of 1,100. December’s downwardly revised 900 jobs gain remained the same, and these companies have now increased their employee numbers by 9.04 percent since February, 2020.

The medicines subsector containing vaccines didn’t perform nearly as robustly in February, but still grew jobs by 800. January’s initially reported 500 employment increase and December’s downwardly revised 2,000 expansion remained the same. The vaccine industry workforce is now 23.05 percent larger than in February, 2020.

The aviation cluster enjoyed a good hiring month in February, too. Jobs in the aircaft industry, dominated by Boeing and companies in its supply chain, rose by 500 – the best since the identical total in November. January’s initially reported downturn of 800 and December’s decrease of 400 remained unrevised. Aircraft employment is still off by 11.57 percent since February, 2020.

Makers of aircraft engines and engine parts expanded their workforces by 900 during February, and although January’s initially reported hiring figures were downgraded, the estimate went only from 1,000 to 900. December’s upwardly revised employment increase of 700 was unrevised, all of which helped these companies bring their payrolls to within 13.20 percent of their February, 2020 levels.

Jobs prospects in the deeply depressed non-engine aircraft parts and equipment sector keep looking up, too. Employment improved by 200 in February, and January’s initially reported job growth of 500 was revised all the way up to 1,500. December’s jobs losses stayed at 900, and although these industries’ headcounts are still 16.35 percent below February, 2020’s, that’s better than the 17.30 percent shortfall calculable last month.

Continuing headwinds are still imaginable for domestic manufacturing – like a dramatic escalation of the fighting in Ukraine (which could greatly heat up inflationary pressures and foster even greater Federal Reserve efforts to slow economic growth); a new CCP Virus variant that’s not only more infectious but more deadly; and more big China lockdowns that could further screw up global supply chains. But given the recent actual record, it’s even easier to imagine manufacturing employment continuing to improve.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Pre-Ukraine War, Anyway, U.S. Manufacturing Employment Regained Momentum

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aircraft, aircraft engines, aircraft parts, automotive, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, fabricated metals products, food products, Jobs, Labor Department, machinery, manufacturing, non-farm payrolls, personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals, PPE, semiconductor shortage, semiconductors, surgical equipment, Ukraine-Russia war, vaccines, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

As strong as U.S.-based manufacturing’s jobs performance looked on the surface in February, a closer look at the numbers released by the Labor Department this morning reveals that it was even better. The big reason? The 36,000 jobs that domestic industry gained last month came despite an 18,000 falloff in the automotive sector, which remained troubled not only by a global semiconductor shortage that will clearly end one of these days, but by a Canadian truckers’ protest that closed a bridge that’s a key transit route for Canadian-made auto parts needed by U.S. auto plants.

Moreover, revisions of previous months’ data were excellent. January’s initially judged 13,000 sequential employment pickup is now pegged at 16,000 and December’s advance was increased from an already upwardly revised 32,000 to 41,000.

Manufacturers didn’t quite keep pace with the rest of the country’s non-farm businesses in February (the Labor Department’s definition of the American employers’ universe). But given the torrid rate of recent economy-wide net job creation, that performance is hardly shabby, and it’s held its own – literally – during the entire sharp recovery achieved by the economy since its April, 2020 pandemic low point.

Before the CCP Virus began seriously distorting the economy’s behavior (in February, 2020), manufacturing jobs accounted for 8.38 percent of total non-farm payrolls. Including the new revisions, this figure had hit 8.40 percent in January of this year, but the February report showed a dip back to 8.38 percent.

The private sector story has been remarkably similar. Manufacturing employment represented 9.83 percent of that sector’s total jobs in February, 2020. Including the new revisions, the share had risen to 9.86 percent in January of this year, but as of Februay, it had retreated back to 9.83 percent.

Put differently, the entire non-farm economy has now replaced 19.886 million (90.43 percent) of the 21.991 million jobs lost during the terrible months of March and April, 2020. The private sector has replaced fully 20.092 million (fully 95.60 percent) of the 21.016 million positions it shed that spring. Manufacturing has replaced 1.184 million (86.93 percent) of its 1.362 million employment drop. But industry’s share of total jobs has stayed stable because its jobs depression in 2020 was less severe than the entire economy’s or the larger private sector’s

February’s biggest manufacturing jobs winners among the major sectors tracked by the Labor Department were highly concentrated – and all were among January’s stellar performers. They were:

>Fabricated metals products added 10,500 jobs on month – though January’s previously reported 5,000 advance is now estimated at 3,700, and the industry’s employment is still 2.95 percent below its immediate pre-pandemic February, 2020 levels (versus 1.39 percent for all of manufacturing);

>Machinery, whose 8,300 increase is especially encouraging, because its products are used so widely throughout the entire economy. But it’s still 2.92 percent shy of its job level in February, 2020;

>and food products, whose payrolls climbed by 7,200, and whose January results were revised up from a 5,200 improvement to 5,800. This progress brought pushed food manufacturing employment levels to 1.01 percent above those in February, 2020.

Meanwhile, automotive was February’s only significant jobs loser. Its 18,000 monthly employment nosedive was its worst such performance since last April’s 49,100 plunge (also due to semiconductor woes). At least its previously reported 4,900 January sequential jobs drop has been revised up to a 3,500 loss. But automotive employment is still 2.55 percent below immediate pre-pandemic levels.

As always, the most detailed employment data for pandemic-related industries are one month behind those in the broader categories, and their January employment picture showed improvement overall.

Payrolls in the semiconductor and related devices segment increased by 200 on month in January, consistent with their very slow growth over the last five years – including during the pandemic era. Interestingly, its companies actually hired more on net during the very sharp CCP Virus-induced recession of 2020 (by 0.59 percent). Since February, 2020, its payrolls are up by 0.86 percent.

Employment increases stayed strong in January in the surgical appliances and supplies sector, which contains personal protective equipment and similar goods. This industry added 1,700 jobs on net, December’s monthly advance remained at 1,100, and November’s results stayed at an upgraded 3,100 increase. Consequently, the surgical appliances and supplies workforce is now 3.41 percent bigger than in pre-pandemicky February, 2020.

January pharmaceuticals and medicines employment dipped by 100 sequentially, however, and December’s 2,400 hiring jump was downgraded to just 900. November’s 700 jobs growth figure was unrevised. Even so, employment in this sector is 8.23 percent higher than just before the major initial CCP Virus hit to the economy.

As for the medicines subsector containing vaccines, the January figures and revisions seem to reveal some lost hiring steam. January monthly job growth was just 500 – the weakest since July’s 100 – and December’s excellent initially reported 2,400 rise is now judged to have been 2,000. November’s own 2,000 increase was unrevised, though, and job growth in this sector since February, 2020 is still a robust 22.23 percent.

January was a much better month than December for the aviation cluster – except oddly for aircaft. That sector, dominated by Boeing, saw employment shrink by 800 sequentially – is worst such performance since July’s 900 drop. Yet December’s originally estimated 600 employment decrease was upgraded to a decline of 400, and November’s results remained at a downgraded 500 job gain. After these latest fluctuations, aircraft industry employment fell to 11.78 percent less than in February, 2020.

Aircraft engines and engine parts makers, however, hired 1,000 workers on net in January – theit best performance since May, 2020’s 4,700, which came early during the strong late-spring recovery from the virus-induced recession. December’s initially reported jobs gain of 500 was revised up to 700, but November’s loss of 300 stayed unrevised. So although employment in these companies in January was 14.07 percent less than in February, 2020, it’s been closing the gap lately.

A notable employment rebound came in non-engine aircraft parts and equipment, where payrolls rose by 500 in January sinking by an unrevised 900 in December. But November’s results were downgraded from no change to a decrease of 100. And the sector payrolls are still down 17.30 percent since Februay, 2020.

I’m holding off on my usual prognosis for U.S. manufacturing employment because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its likely non-trivial economic fallout for the United States, and its probably greater repercussions for the rest of the world (to which domestic manufacturers sell a great deal). U.S.-based industry’s resilience throughout the pandemic has been extraodinary, but big power conflict could create a new and much more formidable set of challenges entirely.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: No Great Reset Yet in the Makeup of U.S. Trade

Tags

aerospace, Boeing, CCP Virus, computers, coronavirus, COVID 19, exports, facemasks, Great Reset, healthcare goods, imports, jewelry, masks, personal protective equipment, phamaceuticals, pharmaceuticals, PPE, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, semiconductor shortage, semiconductors, stay at home economy, Trade, trade deficit, trade surplus, vaccines, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Throughout the CCP Virus period, I’ve refrained from posting on detailed, industry-by-industry trade figures. My reasoning? Pandemic distortions rendered them all but meaningless in terms of what they revealed about the fundamentals of U.S. trade flows and in particular the competitiveness of domestic manufacturing.

Of course, now it looks reasonable to suggest that the pandemic is ending – or at least that the end might really be in sight this time. So I spent some of my weekend comparing the trade flow details from 2019 (the last full pre-pandemic year) with those of 2021 (the last full data year, and whose figures have just been released). And the results surpised the heck out of me. Because if you look at trade deficits and surpluses and how they’ve changed, the best description seems to be surprisingly little.

To start, let’s check out the twenty sectors of the economy that have racked up the biggest trade surpluses in 2019 and 2021. They’re presented below according to the categories created by the U.S. government’s North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), which has become official Washington’s main system for slicing and dicing the U.S. economy. To the right of the actual dollar figure (in billions), you’ll find its rank for that particular year.

And for data junkies, these groupings are those at NAICS’ sixth level of disaggregation – one I like because in many cases it permits distinguishing between final products and the parts and components that make them up. Since for decades, so much U.S. and global trade today takes place in those inputs (because the manufacturing process has become so fragmented because creating complex worldwide supply chains became a premier business model), this distinction has mattered crucially in understanding trade flows.

                                                      2019                             2021

civil aircraft & parts:               $125.953   1                 $79.510   1

natural gas:                                $21.823   4                 $54.923   2

soybeans:                                   $18.493   6                 $27.110   3

other special class provns:         $24.499   3                 $27.019   4

petroleum refinery products:      $30.583  2                 $26.245   5

waste and scrap:                         $13.065  7                 $21.362   6

plastics meterials and resins:     $18.803   5                 $18.771   7

corn:                                             $7.620  11               $18.674    8

semiconductor machinery:          $1.408  43                $11.971   9

semiconductors/related devices: $5.994  14                $10.326  10

non-anthracite coal/petroleum gas:  $9.312  8              $9.250   11

used/second hand merchandise:  $8.805  10                 $8.604  12

non-poultry meat:                        $7.364  12                 $7.898  13

wheat:                                          $5.898  15                 $6.891  14

motor vehicle bodies:                  $9.201  9                   $6.886  15

cotton:                                         $6.225  13                  $5.789  16

copper, nickel, lead, zinc:           $4.402  18                 $5.471   17

tree nuts:                                     $5.096  16                 $4.712   18

prepared/preserved poultry:        $3.745  20                $4.554   19

misc basic inorganic chemicals: $4.169  19                $4.081   20

Some reshuffling of the order of these biggest trade flow winners has taken place. Most stunningly, semiconductor manufacturing equipment jumped from the industry with the forty third widest trade surplus in 2019 to number nine in 2021. Computer parts was in 17^th place in 2019 and fell all the way to 52d place (and out of the Top Twenty) in 2021. And motor vehicle bodies dropped from number nine to number 15. But otherwise, the two lists look remarkably similar. In fact, the seven biggest trade surplus industries of 2019 were also the seven biggest in 2021, though the order changed sllghtly.

What has seen much more major change during this two-year period have been the absolute numbers themselves, and these movements do seem pandemic related, though in different ways. Commodities like natural gas and corn (and to a lesser extent, wheat) appear to have been dramatically affected by inflation.

Trade in semiconductors and the machines that make them clearly reflect the increased importance of the “stay at home economy” – both in terms of leisure and the workplace. (The skyrocketing of the semiconductor machinery surplus, however, is also a reminder of how many of the world’s semiconductors are made outside the United States these days – although the microchip industry has also been decidedly cyclical for many years).

Meanwhile, the nosedive in the aerospace surplus has of course resulted from the woes of Boeing, both because of the CCP Virus-related global slump in air travel, and the company’s own manufacturing and safety problems.

Did this pattern repeat for the twenty sectors that ran the biggest trade deficits in those two years? Here are those lists, with the actual figures again in the billions of dollars:

autos & light duty vehicles:    -$126.272  1                -$96.250   1

goods returned from Canada:    -$91.240  2               -$96.124   2

broadcast & wireless comms equip:  -$72.231  3       -$80.075   3

computers:                                 -$59.443  6                -$79.209   4

crude petroleum:                        -$62.006  5                -$63.495  5

pharmaceutical preparations:     -$62.236  4                -$63.477  6

female cut & sew apparel:         -$42.088  7                -$41.028  7

audio & video equipment:         -$22.184  12               -$34.349   8

male cut & sew apparel:            -$30.889   8                 -$29.851  9

misc motor vehicle parts:           -$23.242  11               -$29.055  10

dolls, toys & games:                  -$17.285   14              -$26.789   11

printed circuit assemblies:         -$16.709   16              -$26.588   12

iron & steel & ferroalloy:          -$16.954   15              -$26.294   13

footwear:                                    -$25.597  10              -$26.037   14

major household appliances:      -$14.128  19              -$20.849   15

misc plastics products:                -$12.886 20              -$20.566   16

jewelry & silverware:                   -$3.476  68             -$17.819   17

motor vehicle electrical equip:   -$14.418  17             -$16.151   18

curtains & linens:                       -$12.134   22             -$15.256   19

aircraft engines & engine parts: -$25.670   9               -$14.070   20

The patterns revealed on this list closely resemble those made clear from the Top Twenty surplus list – some reshuffling but – with just a few exceptions like jewelry and silverware, (Home Shopping Network lines burning up?), and aircraft engines and engine parts – little major change. Indeed, the order of the top three hasn’t changed a bit, and as with the biggest trade surplus sectors, the makeup of the top seven is identical (though the order has been slightly modified).

As with the big surplus winners (though on the consumption side, not the production side), the advent of the “stay at home economy” is evident from the large increases in the absolute trade deficits for computers and audio and video equipment (though not so much for the broadcast and wireless gear category, which contains cell phones).

The damage done by the worldwide semiconductor shortage can be seen in the dramatically lower motor vehicle trade deficit. And aerospace woes come through loud and clear from the even steeper drop in the aircraft engines deficit.

Another take on the trade balance figures is provided by examining the sectors where trade balances have improved the most (either because surpluses have expanded or because deficits have shrunk), and worsened the most (either because surpluses have shrunk or deficits expanded). Below are the biggest trade balance “improvers” by percentage change among the sectors that have either run the fifty biggest trade surpluses or the fifty biggest trade deficits. The sectors with “deficit” to the right of the percentage change are those where trade shortfalls declined.

miscellaneous grains:                                     +1,021.72 percent

semiconductor manufacturing equipment:        +750.18 percent

Jewelry and silverware:                                     +412.65 percent   deficit

sawmill products:                                               +270.45 percent   deficit

storage batteries:                                                +168.67 percent   deficit

natural gas:                                                         +151.67 percent

corn:                                                                   +145.07 percent

surgical appliances & supplies:                          +134.60 percent   deficit

sporting & athletic goods:                                    +86.13 percent   deficit

artificial/synthetic fibers/filaments:                     +74.73 percent   deficit

semiconductors/related devices:                          +72.28 percent

small electrical appliances:                                  +71.87 percent   deficit

waste and scrap:                                                    +65.50 percent

animal fats/oils/byproducts :                                 +63.15 percent

motor vehicle steering &suspension & parts:       +60.49 percent   deficit

misc plastics products:                                          +59.60 percent   deficit

printed circuit assemblies:                                    +59.13 percent   deficit

cooling, heating, & ventilation equipment:          +55.91 percent   deficit

dolls, toys, & games:                                            +54.86 percent   deficit

audio & video equipment:                                    +54.84 percent   deficit

One trend that should jump out right away: Thirteen of the twenty sectors that have improved their trade balances the most are still in deficit – which reflects the nation’s continuing huge trade gap.

Since some of the greatest changes in the order of sectors with the biggest trade deficits and surpluses have come in pandemic-related sectors, it’s not surprising that such industries are prominent on the list of improvers. Hence the appearance of semiconductors and their manufacturing equipment, and commodities like miscellaneous grains, corn, and natural gas.

As for sawmill products, their results owe largely to U.S. lumber tariffs. In sporting and athletic goods, can the deficit’s shrinkage be due to a pandemic-y dropoff in physical activity?

Totally puzzling, though – the improvement in electrical appliances and audio and video equipment, where so much production has migrated overseas in recent decades, and because imports of the latter would seem to have jumped to serve so much of the stay-at-home demand.

But on the encouraging side – the big decrease in the trade deficit in surgical appliances and supplies, which includes all the personal protective equipment (like facemasks, gloves, and medical gowns) that have figured so prominently in the nation’s pandemic response, along with ventilators.

Now the twenty major sectors whose trade balances have worsened the most:

oil & gasfield machinery:                                  +54.65 percent

aircraft engines & engine parts:                         +45.23 percent   deficit

civilian aircraft, engines, & parts:                      +36.87 percent

railroad rolling stock:                                         +35.04 percent

turbines & turbine generator sets:                      +33.09 percent

non-diagnostic biological products:                   +31.84 percent   deficit

in-vitro diagnostic substances:                           +31.10 percent

cyclic crude & other intermediate chemicals:    +31.05 percent

guided missiles & space vehicles:                      +30.07 percent

fibers, yarns, & threads:                                     +29.32 percent

motor vehicle bodies:                                          +25.16 percent

paper bags/coated & treated paper:                    +23.26 percent

autos & light duty vehicles:                               +23.78 percent   deficit

petroleum refinery products:                              +14.19 percent

misc animal foods:                                              +10.35 percent

aircraft:                                                                  +9.98 percent   deficit

paints & coatings:                                                  +9.07 percent

tree nuts:                                                                +7.54 percent

cotton:                                                                    +7.00 percent

male cut & sew apparel:                                        +3.36 percent   deficit

Interestingly, although the nation’s huge and chronic trade deficits means that many more industries run them than surpluses, fifteen of the twenty sectors listed above as leading trade deficit losers are surplus industries. So during the pandemic period so far, their surpluses have shrunk. Moreover, the degree of shrinkage has only been kept relatively low because the surpluses weren’t that big to begin with.

For the aforementioned reasons, the aerospace cluster is well-represented among the big deficit losers. But it’s strange that, during the pandemic so far, the U.S. trade shortfall in the non-diagnostic biologic products category that contains vaccines has gone way up.

Overall, however, the weaker export performance even among big U.S. net export winners points to the global economic slump that’s been created by the CCP Virus and the curbs on business and personal activity it’s spawned – which have combined to drag down growth abroad, in U.S. export markets, more than at home. But the remarkably stable makeup of U.S. surpluses and deficits strongly suggests that any new post-virus normal in American trade will strongly resemble the old one.

Im-Politic: Omicron Looks Fairly Mild – Except Against a Key Biden Virus Claim

Tags

Anthony S. Fauci, Biden, Biden administration, CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, COVID 19, hospitalization, Im-Politic, Omicron variant, vaccination, vaccines, Wuhan virus

I was struck by the statement made by Anthony S. Fauci on Tuesday that the Omicron variant of the CCP Virus is so hyper-infectious that it will “ultimately find just about everybody.” I wasn’t struck by the words of President Biden’s chief medical adviser because Omicron has found me healthwise. Instead, I was struck because the pandemic keeps finding my blogging – even when I don’t intend to write about it.

And so it’s been today. I started out planning to post an item about the Ukraine crisis and globalization (which I will definitely turn to), but Mr. Biden’s latest virus-related remarks have jerked me right back to the pandemic. Specifically responsible was his claim that unless many more Americans become fully vaccinated, Omicron’s rapid spread will mean that the nation’s hospitals will be crowded with resisters who contract unusually severe cases, leaving “little room for anyone else who might have a heart attack or an injury in an automobile accident or any injury at all.”

This point makes perfect sense. Even if Omicron’s effects are relatively mild for most victims, if the absolute numbers of cases are high enough, even a relatively small percentage of infections serious enough to require hospitalization would be enough to overwhelm the hospital system. And if, as Mr. Biden and so many others insist, the overwhelming majority of those hospitalized are unvaccinated individuals, then the case for mandatory vaccination would look open and shut.

But to use one of the President’s favorite phrases, “Here’s the deal.” Even if every American was fully vaxxed and boosted, if Fauci is right about Omicron’s eventual reach, then the hospital system will get overwhelmed anyway. Just do the math.

The whole U.S. population is a little above 330,000,000. If everyone gets Omicron, that’s 330,000,000 cases. How many are resulting in hospitalizations? The President says that unvaccinated Americans are “seventeen times more likely to get hospitalized” from the CCP Virus than the vaxxed.

This figure seems to come from the latest data kept by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which finds that for every 100,000 American adults, 67.8 “Covid-19-Associated Hospitalizations” take place each week, versus a rate of only 3.9 hospitalizations for the fully vaccinated. That’s a big difference. But if you project those numbers out to the full 330,000,000 population rather than a sample of 100,000, you get 12,870 fully vaxxed hospitalizations each week.

That figure is a lot smaller than the number of “staffed (operational) acute care beds” in America (534,964, according to the latest count from the American Hospital Association). It’s also a lot smaller than the number of intensive care unit beds (96,5960).

But all by itself, it seems to be enough greatly to stress the heathcare system, given that (as the President noted), it’s got many other responsibilities; given that the 12,870 figure represents the number of new hospital patients added each week; and given that many of these fully vaxxed CCP Virus patients are going to stay hospitalized for a certain period even as new patients in this category keep coming in. 

At the same time, the CDC data on fully vaxxed Covid hospital patients surely creates an understatement for one big reason: They only go up to the week of last November 20. Therefore, they predate the recording of the first U.S. Omicron case (last December 1.)

The United States still lacks comprehensive nation-wide statistics on Omicron-related hospitalizations of the fully vaxxed. But some preliminary numbers indicate that their impact on hospitals will be catastrophic. For example, for the week of last December 27 (more than a month after the latest CDC numbers but just as the first Omicron case was reported), New York State found that 4.59 out of every 100,000 city residents who had been fully vaccinated were hospitalized for the CCP Virus.

That’s a positively infintestimal number. But multiply it out by the total 330,000,000 U.S. population, and that’s more than 1.5 million virus-related hospitalizations of the fully vaxxed. And even if you doubt that these numbers would hold for the entire country (because the United States is big and diverse), a breakthrough hospitalization rate only half that high would still produce more than 750,000 such cases.    

Some more recent figures are even more alarming. As of January 6, the Las Vegas, Nevada area experienced 27,205 breakthrough virus cases (e.g., number of infections of the fully vaxxed), of which 873 were hospitalized. That’s 3.21 percent. Ohio’s official Covid-19 dashboard says that of 53,819 state residents counted as “Covid-19 Hospitalizations,” since January 1, 2021, 2,991 have been  fully vaccinated. That’s 5.56 percent.

According to this January 6 post, in Connecticut, “The overall percentage of fully vaccinated people hospitalized with COVID has also risen to 32 percent, from about 20 percent early last week.”

Massachusetts has reported that as of early January, the state’s hospitals were treating 2,970 patients with confirmed cases of the CCP Virus. Of these, 1,348 were fully vaccinated. That’s more than 45 percent!

In fact, once again, if these numbers are too high by a factor of two, they still add up to overwhelmed hospital systems.

Help is on the way in the form of recently approved treatments (though it looks like due to Biden administration shortsightedness or caution, they’ll be kind of scarce for several months), and in the distinct possibilities that the Omicron wave will crest sooner rather than later, and that follow-on virus strains will be even less virulent. What’s more certain is that Omicron is making a complete – and unnecessarily divisive – mockery of Mr. Biden’s continuing “pandemic of the unvaccinated” claims.

Im-Politic: Covid Derangement Syndrome

Tags

CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, COVID 19, health care, hospitals, Im-Politic, mask mandate, masks, Omicron variant, Politico, vaccine mandates, vaccines, Wuhan virus

If there’s emerged an Exhibit A as to how completely incoherent the nation’s public health establishment and medical systems have become on dealing with the CCP Virus (including its super-infectious but generally mild and often asymptomatic Omicron variant), it’s an article yesterday in Politico headlined “Health care workers are panicked as desperate hospitals ask infected staff to return.”

As is so often the case, moreover, this virus-related trend and its fallout has been reported without any allusions to the incoherence. And practically all of the muddle is expressed in the very first paragraph, starting with the very first half of the very first sentence:

“While most health workers are vaccinated, many are still falling sick, exacerbating a staff shortage as more Americans seek hospital care. The reliance on employees who may still be infectious comes despite objections from nurses‘ unions and the American Medical Association, which warned the decision puts patients’ health and safety at risk. And there are no requirements that patients be notified if their caregiver is sick.”

Presumably, when reporter Rachael Levy writes that “most health workers are vaccinated,” she means “fully vaccinated” – including boosters. Yet “many are still falling sick.” Readers never learn how many or, more important, what percentage. But it’s no doubt lots – indeed, enough to create and worsen staff shortages.

That alone should blow a big hole in the various sweeping “vaccines work” claims used, notably, to justify mandates for the jabs, especially since these health care workers by definition must overwhelmingly be individuals young enough and free enough of the special medical conditions to be able to avoid illness serious enough to render them too infeebled to report to work — much less to threaten grave illness or death.

But the headline indicates that the concern of the “panicked” health care workers isn’t simply that the colleagues who believe they should be staying home are crawling in, uncontrollably shedding pathogens and threatening staff and patients alike, and/or are physically incapable of performing their duties adequately.

They’re also concerned that these colleagues are “infected” in the first place.

Yet these worries are loopy for any number of glaringly obvious reasons. For example, if infected health care workers are asymptomatic, they should be fully capable of doing their jobs. In addition, the evidence so far seems to show that most virus victims don’t spread the pathogen (see, e.g., here and here), and when they do, they’re most contagious very early in their infections.

That last point is crucial because it’s behind the latest guidance for health care facilities issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As Levy (thankfully!) reports, this advisory allows such providers “to bring back workers after five days of isolation, instead of 10, without a negative Covid-19 test.” What’s more, “In cases where workforce shortages become extreme, hospitals can bring back staff without any isolation period.”

Stranger still: Presumably the health care workers who so fear their supposedly irresponsible colleagues are, according to their own definitions, behaving very responsibly themselves. In other words, they’re surely individuals who are both fully vaccinated and dedicated mask-wearers.

If they’re vaccinated, of course, it’s now clear that their protection against infection is far from perfect, but that their protection against severe illness and death is very good. That is, if they do get infected, and since they are young-ish and strong-ish, they’ll recover fully and pretty quickly — assuming they experience any symptoms at all.

Further, since they work in hospitals, they’re almost certainly also wearing the kinds of masks that are highly effective in preventing infection, not the cloth masks worn so widely outside hospitals that even the CDC has found provide pretty ineffective protection. So have the worried workers now joined the “vaccines and many masks don’t work at all” camp?

It’s true that the Omicron variant may be a virulent enough spreader to confound both vaccines and boosters and even high quality masks, at least to a significant degree. But if this is the case, to date, the health effects of Omicron spread look much too weak to justify panic or even close for anyone without specific vulnerabilities.

Yes, hospitals are full of people with such vulnerabilities – the patients. But the CDC guidelines contain recommendations for dealing with them.

Not that the CDC has covered itself with glory throughout the pandemic. Or that this specific approach that it’s taken to the health care system will keep everyone involved fully protected.

But as one hospital CEO quoted by Levy reminds, “We don’t have good choices — or the choices that we want.” A new consensus seems to be emerging in the nation that America has to “learn to live” with the CCP Virus. Unless it’s believed that somehow the health care delivery system should be an exception (and should be crippled until somehow something close to Zero Covid is reached without it?) hospital workers need to follow this advice, too.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: U.S. Manufacturing Job Creation Stands Out Again

Tags

aerospace, aircraft, aircraft engines, aircraft parts, CCP Virus, chemicals, coronavirus, COVID 19, Employment, Jobs, machinery, manufacturing, medical supplies, NFP, non-farm jobs, non-farm payrolls, non-metallic mineral products, Omicron variant, paper and paper products, personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals, plastics and rubber products, PPE, private sector, semiconductor shortage, semiconductors, surgical equipment, vaccines, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Make that twice in a row. Just as in its November counterpart, the December official U.S. jobs data revealed sluggish overall American employment growth but better numbers for manufacturing. Even better, the gains were broad-based and the revisions of previous solid results were nicely positive.

A glass-half-empty type could rightly point out that industry’s 26,000 sequential payrolls gain last month was its weakest monthly result since April’s 35,000 employment drop. But the sector’s previously reported 31,000 sequential employment improvement is now pegged at 35,000. And after being downgraded from 60,000 to a (still-not-too shabby) 48,000, October’s increase has now been upgraded to 52,000.

For comparison’s sake, industry’s employment improvement came to 0.21 percent – as opposed to 0.17 percent for the private sector as a whole and 0.13 percent for “non-farm payrolls” (the U.S. Labor Department’s definition of the American employment universe).    

In fact, the December results continued a record of job out-performance that’s been consistent throughout the pandemic period.

As of December, manufacturers had replaced 84.19 percent (1.166 million) of the 1.385 million employees they’d shed during the short but steep CCP Virus-induced downturn of March and April, 2020. That figure’s 3.01 percent higher the 81.73 percent of regained jobs calculable from last month’s jobs report. Consequently, manufacturing payrolls are within 1.71 percent of their levels in February, 2020 – the last full data month before the pandemic began hammering and distorting the entire economy.

As for non-farm payrolls, they’ve now regained 84.02 percent (18.790 million) of the 22.362 million jobs lost during the worst of the pandemic. That’s 1.84 percent better than the 82.50 percent share calculable from last month’s jobs report. And there are now just 2.34 percent fewer non-farm U.S. jobs than in February, 2020.

As in the recent past, at first glance today it looks like the U.S. private sector has outdone manufacturing jobs-wise since the current economic rebound began. It’s recovered 87.61 percent (18.708 million) of its 21.353 million job loss during the spring of 2020. That’s 1.80 percent higher than the 86.06 percent figure calculable from the November jobs report. So it’s workforce is now 2.04 percent smaller than just before the pandemic.

But as known by RealityChek regulars, manufacturing’s jobs decline during that terrible spring of 2020 was smaller proportionately than that of the private or non-farm sectors. So even though it’s had less ground to make up, U.S.-based industry has been creating new employment at nearly the pace of the economy as a whole.

Indeed, just before the CCP Virus struck, manufacturing jobs represented 8.45 percent of total non-farm employment and 9.87 percent of private sector employment. As of December, these shares had risen to 8.45 percent and 9.90 percent, respectively.

The list of biggest jobs winners among the major manufacturing sub-sectors tracked by the Labor Department was headed by machinery – where payrolls rose by 7,000 on month in December. That was its biggest advance since July’s 8,700, and especially encouraging both because this industry lost 6,000 jobs in November (slightly better than the 7,000 decrease previously reported), and because its products are used throughout both manufacturing and big non-manufacturing industries like agriculture and construction.

Therefore, if machinery makers are adding strongly to their headcounts, they’re probably expecting demand for their goods to grow further. December’s hiring surge brought machinery employment to within 2.14 percent of its February, 2020 level.

Another major manufacturing employment gainer – automotive, where employment increased by 4,200 sequentially in December, and where the terrible 10,100 job loss reported last month for November is now judged to be just 5,900. As a result, payrolls in automotive – which remains dogged by the global semiconductor shortage – are now 5.28 percent lower than their immediate pre-pandemic levels.

Good December results were reported as well in the very big chemicals sector, which added 2,300 positions on month, and whose November performance was upgraded from no change to a 400-worker increase. Consequently, chemicals employment is now 1.30 percent greater than in February, 2020.

Other significant December manufacturing jobs winners included non-metallic mineral products (2,100) and plastics and rubber products (2,000).

The only manufacturing jobs loser that saw payrolls down by more than 1,000 was paper and paper products, where employment was off by 1,500. Even here, though, there was a somewhat bright side, as the decline was its first since July, and followed an upwardly revised 2,800 gain – its best since September, 2020’s 3,200. And this sub-sector’s employment levels are off just 1.84 percent since pre-pandemic-y February, 2020.

Given the aforementioned semiconductor shortage, however, it’s worth noting that December saw the semiconductors and electronic components industries (which, as the name suggests, includes more than just microchips), suffer their first back-to-back employment decline since March and April, 2020. The job reductions of 200 in November (upgraded from the previously reported 600) and 800 in December left employment levels 0.08 percent below those just before the CCP Virus struck.

As always, the most detailed employment data for pandemic-related industries are one month behind those in the broader categories, and their November job creation was mixed.

The surgical appliances and supplies sector, which contains personal protective equipment and similar goods, added 1,400 workers sequentially in November. And even though October net hiring remained unrevised at a small 100, these industries have now increased employment by 9.60 percent since February, 2020.

Yet the overall pharmaceuticals and medicines industry lost 600 jobs in November, after boosting employment by a downwardly revised 1,400 in October. Its workforce is now 5.27 percent larger than in February, 2020.

Much better results were turned in by the medicines subsector containing vaccines. October’s hiring gain was revised up from 700 to 800, and payrolls rose by another 1,400 in November. These advances have pushed these companies’ payrolls 14.66 higher than just before the pandemic’s arrival.

The mixed pattern continued in the aviation cluster, which has suffered both from aerospace giant Boeing’s manufacturing and safety problems and the pandemic’s restrictions on travel. Good news like the prospect of China allowing the troubled 737 Max model to return to its huge market reportedly have spurred the company to speed up a production rebound, and interestingly, U.S. aircraft employment climbed by 1,000 in November – the best monthly performance since July’s 4,700 jump.

But October’s previously reported small 300 jobs gain was revised down to 200, and with its workforce still 7.75 percent smaller than in February, 2020, aircraft employment’s comeback remains far from complete.

Moreover, the improving aircraft jobs picture doesn’t yet extend to aircraft suppliers. In aircraft engines and engine parts industry, October’s previously reported 100 job decline is now judged to be an increase of 100. But payrolls resumed shrinking in November (by 300), and employment in this sector is now off 13.93 percent since February, 2020.

In non-engine aircraft parts and equipment, employment was unchanged sequentially in November, but a jobs gain of 100 previously reported for October has now been downgraded to a job loss of 100. The bottom line? Its workforce is now 15.74 percent smaller than in February, 2020.

As has been so often the case, and like the rest of the economy, U.S. manufacturing faces perplexing – and in fact unprecedented crosswinds – going forward. And the uncertainties look all the more mysterious since these December jobs results pre-date the arrival of the wildly infectious Omicron variant of the CCP Virus – which could well lead to more health-related restrictions and behavioral changes, even tighter labor markets, and slower economic growth.

But unless Omicron prompts major, protracted shutdowns, manufacturing’s performance during the pandemic so far seems to justify optimism that industry will keep overcoming whatever obstacles come its way — whether policy or pathogens.

Im-Politic: It’s Time for Them to Go

Tags

Anthony S. Fauci, Biden adminstration, CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, children, coronavirus, COVID 19, Fauci, FDA, Food and Drug Administration, hospitalization, hospitalizations, Im-Politic, Mary T. Bassett, misinformation, New York State, pediatric vaccination, public health, Rochelle Walensky, schools, testing, vaccinations, vaccine mandates, vaccines, Wuhan virus

As the New Year brings Americans their third calendar year of coping with the CCP Virus, it’s abundantly clear that there’s no such thing as a firing offense when it comes to the nation’s leading public health authorities. And it’s been evident in not one but two cases over the last week alone.

Case number one involves Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser. Fauci should already be in near-boiling legal water over the likelihood that he lied to Congress in denying that the National Institute of Alergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) never funded dangerous gain-of-function virus-related research in China. Now he’s just (unwittingly) admitted that he’s been guilty of pandemic-related fear-mongering of the first order on the vital issue of safeguarding children’s well-being.

Fauci has long warned about the dangers posed to minors by the virus and linked vaccination of pupils (along with mask requirements for them) to the goal of keeping schools safely opened. And he’s focused not only on pediatric infection numbers, but on hospitalization rates – widely considered a far more serious matter because they supposedly reveal the incidence of serious and potentially fatal infections. As he argued on NBC News‘ “Meet the Press” on August 8:

“There are a lot of children now – all you need to do is do a survey of the pediatric hospitals throughout the country, and you’re seeing a considerable number of young people who are not only infected but who are seriously ill….the numbers compared to the elderly are less, but that’s a false comparison. These kids are getting sick. We’ve really got to make sure we protect them.”

The alarmist nature of his comments should have been clear from the start, as, for example, that week, according to the CCP Virus data tracker maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the virus-related rate of new hospital admissions for Americans under 17 averaged about 0.14 per 100,000 – which comes to an absolute number of about 100 total hospitalizations among the 73.1 million in that age group as of the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures.

But as I’ve explained, by that time, a national healthcare leader like Fauci should have been aware of the big problem with the hospitalization data in general – they rarely distinguished between patients who were hospitalized because of the virus, and patients hospitalized for other reasons who happened to test positive for the pathogen once admitted. In other words, many “Covid-related hospitalizations” have had nothing to do with Covid.

Here’s how one expert has explained the problem:

“[I]f you look at the children are hospitalized many of them are hospitalized with COVID as opposed to because of COVID. What we mean by that is that if a child goes in the hospital they automatically get tested for COVID and they get counted as a COVID hospitalized individual, when in fact they may go in for a broken leg or appendicitis or something like that.”

“So it’s over counting the number of children who are ‘hospitalized’ with COVID as opposed to because of COVID.”

This expert’s name? Anthony Fauci. But he didn’t make the admission until last week – when total national “Covid-related hospitalizations” for kids still numbered in the low hundreds.

Yet bizarrely, Fauci still favors vaccination for this highly secure demographic cohort, in line with the equally bizarre authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and recommendation from the CDC.  And this even though the jabs for five-to-fifteen years olds are approved only on an “emergency basis”; even though the evidence used seems to consist of a single trial of some 3,100 children; and even though – unlike far more vulnerable older Americans – these vaccine recipients will mostly have many decades from now for any side effects to emerge.

So on the grounds of spreading virus misinformation alone, Fauci should be gone.

Speaking of pediatric hospitalizations and misinformation, it’s also time to sack new New York State Health Commissioner Mary T. Bassett as well. Also last Monday, touting the imperative of pediatric vaccinations, she declared, “Many people continue to think that children do not become infected with COVID. This is not true. Children become infected with COVID and some will become hospitalized. The vaccination coverage remains too low. We need to get child vaccinations up, particularly in the 5-to-11-year-old age group.”

At this time, New York State had recorded 184 child covid hospitalizations (out of a total under-18 population of 4.18 million, according to the latest Census Bureau data). But alarmism wasn’t the worst of Bassett’s offenses. Instead, it was this jaw-dropping admission: 

“The numbers we gave on pediatric admissions weren’t intended to make it seem that children were having an epidemic of infection. These were small numbers that we reported in our health alert. That was based on 50 hospitalizations, and I’ve now given you some larger numbers, but they’re still small numbers. It really is to motivate pediatricians and families to seek the protection of vaccination.”

Lying to the public isn’t a criminal offense – and probably shouldn’t be.  But it sure should be a firing offense. 

According to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, who should be facing big job security questions herself due to the nation’s crying shortage of CCP Virus testing capability despite the Biden administration’s backing for sweeping vaccine mandates, her agency’s controversial decision last week on isolation for indivduals with asymptomatic cases stemmed partly from the “relatively low rates of isolation for all of this pandemic. Some science has demonstrated less than a third of people are isolating when they need to.”  Given Americans’ truth-challenged public health officials, reluctance to follow their advice and instructions is easy to understand.            

 

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A New U.S. Manufacturing Growth Report That’s the Good Kind of Boring

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aerospace, aircraft, aircraft parts, automotive, Boeing, Build Back Better, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Federal Reserve, inflation-adjusted output, infrastructure, interest rates, Iran, Iran deal, Israel, Joe Manchin, machinery, manufacturing, medical devices, nuclear deal, Omicron variant, personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals, plastics and rubber products, PPE, quantitative easing, Russia, semiconductors, stimulus, supply chains, Taiwan, tariffs, therapeutics, Trade, Ukraine, vaccines, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Today’s Federal Reserve after-inflation U.S. manufacturing data (for November) were refreshingly (though encouragingly) boring, with one exception – some genuinely eye-popping revisions in specific, high-profile industries.

Overall real manufacturing output improved on month by 0.68 percent, adding to the evidence that domestic industry has bounced back from summer and early fall doldrums caused partly by damage from Hurricane Ida and partly by a global semiconductor shortage that depressed automotive production.

And in this vein, the November results weren’t dramatically impacted by the vehicle and parts sector, whose inflation-adjusted production rose by a 2.22 percent figure that’s clearly strong but decidedly un-dramatic compared with the roller-coaster it’s been on for most of the year.

In addition, revisions for manufacturing as a whole were modest and mixed.

The list of November’s biggest monthly manufacturing growth winners indicates how broad-based industry’s sequential constant dollar output gains were in November. No fewer than six of the major manufacturing subsectors tracked by the Fed enjoyed price-adjusted production advances of more than one percent. Aside from automotive, they were aerospace and miscellaneous transportation (whose 1.64 percent increase included another strong rise in aircraft, as will be detailed below); paper (up 1.63 percent); plastics and rubber products (1.45 percent); non-metallic mineral goods (1.25 percent); and textiles (1.21 percent).

The biggest losers were petroleum and coal products (down 1.24 percent on month); machinery (off by 0.66 percent); apparel and leather goods (0.53 percent); and printing and related support activities (0.50 percent).

But even in this group, hopeful signs can be found. As RealityChek regulars know, drps in machinery production are worrisome because its products are used so widel in the rest of manufacturing and in big non-manufacturing sectors like construction and agriculture.

But the November decline followed one of those eye-popping revisions. October’s originally reported 1.27 percent sequential decrease is now judged to be a 0.59 percent increase.

Moreover, the printing and petroleum and coal products fall-offs were both preceded by October real production advances that have been downwardly revised (from 4.97 percent to 3.79 percent for the former, and from 1.41 percent to 1.18 percent for the latter) but were still impressive.

Manufacturing industries that have been prominent in the news during the pandemic generally performed worse in November, save for aircraft and parts – whose performance was spurred by news from industry giant Boeing that continues to be pretty good. (See, e.g., here and here.) After-inflation production climbed by 1.90 percent month-to-month in November, and October’s 1.43 percent increase was revised up to 1.54 percent.

Even with a second downward revision to September’s inflation-adjusted output (from 0.45 percent all the way down to a negligible 0.09 percent), constant dollar output in aircraft and parts is now 15.86 percent higher than in February, 2020 – the last full data month before the CCP Virus began seriously distorting the U.S. economy.

Pharmaceuticals and medicines, however, lost even more growth momentum. Despite major demand for and use of vaccines, their price-adjusted output dipped by 0.15 percent sequentially in November, and October’s decrease was revised from 0.51 percent to 0.76 percent. But September saw another one of these enormous revisions – from a downgraded 1.04 percent production fall to a 0.76 percent gain. All told, these industries are now 13.54 percent bigger in constant dollar terms as of November than in February, 2020.

The news was worse in the crucial medical equipment and supplies sector – which includes virus-fighting items like face masks, protective gowns, and ventilators. Real production in November was off by 0.61 percent month-to-month in November, and October’s previously reported 1.08 percent decrease is now estimated at a greater 1.91 percent. Moreover, September’s results saw their second big downgrade – first from an initially reported 1.53 percent growth to a 0.73 percent gain, and this morning to one of just 0.16 percent. So since February, 2020, after-inflation production in this sector is up a mere 0.65 percent.

As with the entire economy, the manufacturing sector is being pushed and pulled by what seems to be an unprecedented number and type of forces and government decisions. On balance, though, unless the Omicron variant of the CCP Virus prompts much more voluntary or officially mandated disruption at home or abroad than seems likeliest now, further manufacturing growth still looks like the best bet for the foreseeable future.

Although prospects for stimulus from President Biden’s Build Back Better bill seem barely on life support due to West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin’s continuing objections, and the Federal Reserve yesterday announced further reductions in its stimulative bond-buying (AKA quantitaive easing), infrastucture bill money should soon begin flowing.  Further, the central bank still made clear that heavy levels of quantitative easing will continue for months more, and is in no rush to start raising interest rates.

Most consumers still have plenty of money to spend, even though further inflation could weaken their appetites. U.S. employment levels keep rebounding strongly by most measures. Supply chain knots continue untangling, albeit not always quickly. Mr. Biden is keeping nearly all of his predecessor’s China tariffs in place, which is preventing predatory Chinese competition from taking customers from domestic manufacturers. The brightening Boeing picture will help its entire vast U.S.-based supply chain. And American and overseas demand for both CCP Virus vaccines and now therapeutics will surely keep growing whatever the rest of the domestic or global economies do.

One set of gathering clouds shouldn’t be neglected, however. I don’t mean to sound alarmist, and don’t believe conflicts are imminent, but what the investment community calls “geopolitical risk” is troublingly on the rise in Asia (due to mounting Chinese pressures on Taiwan) and Europe (due to Russia’s military buildup on the Ukraine border). Moreover, although negotiations to slow Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons capability have resumed, this has been ongoing and nearing critical threshholds. And it’s far from clear how well a nuclear Iran would go down with Israel – just as it’s far from clear how well domestic manufacturing and the rest of the economy could withstand a second major non-economic disruption in a very few years.